Pass Ed's Living Textbook
Free Lesson Plans for Teachers
Alpha Stage
Housing Costs
October 3, 2006





The New York Times is running an article entitled, "Across
Nation, Housing Costs Rise as Burden." According to the article,
Christopher Jones, vice president of research at the Regional Plan
Association in New York City said,
“Housing prices have gone up much more than incomes have...
Clearly, you can’t sustain that sort of imbalance over the long
run. There’s only so long that housing prices can go up without
sustained increases in income to support them.”

I live in the southeastern section of Michigan, the home of the
"'Big' 3 Automakers." Rather than rising, housing cots in this
region continuously lower. Michigan's economy is doing very
poorly and the Big 3 are suffering tremendously, as a result of
competition from abroad. This lowers the value of real estate.
But, I'm not sure what percentage of their salaries homeowners
are paying for their homes. Students could certainly research this
question. What effect might the situation in Detroit have on the
rest of the country?


Discussion Starters

  • Many young students don't understand the concept of
    ownership. Compare owning a house to owning a pen or
    pencil. Just as children own their pens/pencils their
    parents might own their homes. The school owns the
    carpet or floor between the students desks/tables. The
    government owns the streets that run between houses.
    Help students understand this concept of ownership.

  • In small groups you might consider having students
    develop a list of goods and services that they will have to
    pay for on a regular basis when they are adults. Using this
    list as a starting point, ask them to consider what
    percentage of their income they should spend on their
    home. Push them to explain their rationales for their
    decisions.

  • In a math class, this current event lends itself to the
    consideration of percentages. Ask students to write story
    problems in which classmates will have to determine how
    much of somebody's income he/she spends on their
    home. After students have written these story problems
    have other students solve them. You might consider
    having students write their story problems on blogs.

  • The "American Dream" is to own your own home. Ask
    students to write an essay/ develop a comic strip/create a
    skit in which they explain people want to own their own
    homes. What does this dream say about the American
    people? If you don't teach in the United States (or maybe
    even if you do teach in the United States) ask your
    students how important it is to own a home. Encourage
    them to explain why. You might have students interview
    other people to determine their opinions on the importance
    of owning their own home and podcast these interviews.

  • Tell your students that a think tank has hired them to
    consider the affect that people are spending more of their
    income on homes, than they had previously spent on
    homes, might have on the rest of the American economy.
    Encourage students to explain their positions. Tell them to
    develop concrete examples to support their positions.
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